The Fix
"The Fix" is the sixth episode in season 1, and the sixth produced hour of Person of Interest. It originally aired on October 27, 2011. Synopsis New York, NY A woman makes a call, saying that they’re doing something wrong. Reese is posing as a new driver for a woman, Zoe Morgan. After she confirms that he’s legitimate, thanks to Finch intercepting her phone call to the car company, Zoe tells Reese to stay quiet and drive, and then pays him his fee with bills ripped in half, telling him he’ll get the other halves when she’s satisfied at the end of the night. As they leave, Finch breaks into her apartment. He reports to Reese via earbud that she has no current job and just bought the apartment for $2 million three years ago. Finch doesn’t find any personal belongings except for some jazz records. Reese drives Zoe to an appointment at the river where she meets with a man called Skip and his two fellow gang members. She buys a gun from Skip and then has Reese drive her to a party. As he drives, Reese sees Zoe open the package, revealing a gun inside. She goes inside to the party and Finch informs Reese that he’s found a hidden gun in her apartment. Reese figures that Zoe bought the gun from Skip because it’s untraceable and that she’s planning to shoot someone at the party. He runs inside and sees Zoe privately approach a cop, Lt. Gilmore. However, Zoe gives him the gun and Gilmore thanks her, saying that she’s saved a good cop’s career. Zoe is unimpressed, noting that the cop she saved is also Gilmore’s nephew. The lieutenant asks if they’re even and Zoe says that he still owes him. Reese drives her back to the apartment and she pays him and goes inside. Finch meets with Reese and they figure that Zoe is a government and corporate “fixer,” making shady deals for big money, and that she’s the victim. Detective Terney calls Carter in to investigate the death of Vincent DeLuca, an elderly ex-mob enforcer. DeLuca was killed in his living room, stabbed in the chest repeatedly with an old kitchen knife. The officers check DeLuca’s background and confirm that he walked on a charge of murder against Marlene Elias. According to the files, DeLuca supposedly killed her with a kitchen knife... the same knife that was used to kill him. Carter confirms that the knife was the in “M. Elias” box that was stolen from the police lockup. The next day, Reese drives Zoe to meet with Samuel Douglas, an executive in charge of “crisis management” for Virtanen Pharmaceuticals. Douglas hires Zoe to recover a recording from Anthony Talbott, a blogger who claims to have evidence of an affair against Mark Lawson, CFO at Virtanen and Douglas’ boss. Talbott wants $40,000 for the recording, and Lawson can’t afford the scandal because he’s in line to inherit the company from his father-in-law, Robert Keller. Zoe agrees to pay off Talbott with Douglas’ funds and get the recording. Zoe makes contact with Talbott and meets him in the park. She pays him the $40,000, but points out that he should have asked for twice that. Reese watches the exchange and figures that Talbott isn’t the killer. Finch, listening in, tells Reese to get Zoe talking so that they can find out more about her clients and who might want to kill her. At the station, Carter calls in Bernie Sullivan, a retired detective who investigates Marlene Elias’ murder. He explains that he had DeLuca dead to rights on the murder of Marlene, a cocktail waitress, involved with Gianni Moretti, a Mafia don. Marlene wanted Gianni to abandon his wife and marry her, and Gianni had her killed. Bernie could have gotten Gianni put away, but the mobster bribed the DA and had the case dismissed. Sullivan confirms that Marlene had a son, Carl, and that the boy was in the backyard when DeLuca murdered his mother. The mobster refused to acknowledge the bastard and Carl ended up in the foster system. As Reese drives, he tries to make small talk with Zoe, asking about her interest in jazz. When he points out that she knows how to play people, Zoe tells him that she fixes people, she doesn’t play them, and that she hates jazz. She has Reese take her to an alleyway to meet with Douglas and give him the recording, but they’re both surprised to see that Douglas has several men with him. Reese offers to take care of it while she remains in the car, but Zoe goes over to meet with Douglas on her own. When she gives him the recording, Douglas orders her into the car and has his men “escort” her in. Reese intervenes, taking them out, and gets Zoe away in the car as Douglas opens fire. When Finch contacts Reese by earbud, Zoe realizes that her driver is more than he seems. Finch gives Reese Talbott’s address, and Reese says that they need to find Talbott and get the original recording. However, Zoe admits that she made a copy for herself, but who has no idea who the woman on the recording is. When Reese and Zoe arrive at Talbott’s apartment, they see that the police are outside. Finch confirms that Talbott is dead, apparently of a heart attack, and Zoe slips away while Reese is distracted. Reese returns to see Finch, who is trying to clean up the recording. So far, he’s confirmed that it’s two years old and that the woman on the recording is Dana Miller, a worker at Virtanen who appeared in a TV ad, giving Finch a voice to match. Finch admits that Dana’s number came up six months ago, but he hadn’t meet Reese then and had no way to save her. According to the police report, Dana died of a brain aneurysm, but Reese figures that Lawson had her killed to protect his affair. Finch insists that they stop Lawson from giving them another number to save, and tells Reese to find Zoe. When Reese asks where he’ll be, Finch says that he’ll be taking a meeting concerning a recent business investment. At Virtanen, Lawson is preparing for a meeting with a major new shareholder in the company. Douglas warns him that the newcomer now owns 8% of Virtanen stock and that they may need to bring in Keller to keep the man happy. Finch introduces himself under an alias as the new shareholder, and gives Lawson a watch as a gift, in the Japanese tradition. Lawson takes Finch on a tour of the company and explains that their planning the release of a new, highly profitable anti-migraine drug, Sylocet, now that they have FDA approval. Keller arrives and meets privately with Finch, explaining that his son-in-law is already making all the big decisions for the company supervising the research, and that Keller will be retiring in a few months. Once Keller leaves, Finch listens in on the bug he planted on his gift to Lawson and hears Douglas report to Lawson that they failed to dispose of Zoe, and that her driver is more than she seems. Sullivan does some more research on Carl Elias and calls Carter to tell her that the boy was moved from foster home to foster home. The only foster parent that he struck up a close relationship with was Gloria Recinto. Carl has sent her Christmas cards, and Sullivan tells Carter that they were disturbing. Carter says that she’ll meet Sullivan at home to pick up his files. At their headquarters, Reese and Finch go over what they have. They figure that for now, Zoe is safe because if they can’t find her, neither can Douglas. Finch cleans up some of the recording and determines that Dana was actually threatening to blow the whistle on Lawson for something at Virtanen. They pick up a signal from Zoe’s cell phone, which Reese bugged earlier, and Reese goes to the restaurant where she’s staying. She explains that she figured he bugged the phone and activated the GPS so they could find her. Intrigued, Zoe admits that she knows everyone important in the city, private and public, but she doesn’t know anything about Reese. She wants to use Reese to get out from under Douglas and Lawson, and explains that Dana, who worked in the clinical trial lab at Virtanen, was transferred out of there five days before she was killed. Reese wonders if Zoe plans to make a deal with Douglas and Lawson, but she says that Dana reminds her of a similar naïve girl that Zoe once knew, and she plans to make them pay. She then invites Reese to come along with her so they can break into Virtanen together. Before they go to the company, Zoe arranges another meeting with Gilmore. She tells him to make sure that the cops don’t respond to any alarms at Virtanen. The lieutenant agrees, telling her that the favor makes them even. Reese and Zoe then break into Virtanen while Finch hacks the security system and warns them of the security measures. They get to Lawson’s office and Reese uses a paper clip to pick the lock. Using Finch’s recovery software program, they access the deleted information on Lawson’s computer and learn that Dana had access to the Sylocet testing files. The files given to the FDA were fake, and the real file has the names of six people who died of heart attacks after taking the drug. They realize that Lawson covered up the deaths to assure FDA approval and a big payoff. As they work, Finch records the sound of the air conditioning so he can use it to further clean up the recording. Meanwhile, Douglas arrives in the office and captures Zoe and Reese. Gilmore comes in and Zoe warns that she’ll destroy him for betraying them, but Gilmore points out that he performed his end of things and made sure that the cops didn’t respond to the alarms. Finch finishes cleaning up the recording and hears the end of the message, where Dana threatened to go to Keller and tell him what Lawson was doing. He tries to call Reese without success and checks the monitors to confirm that Zoe and Reese are no longer in Lawson’s office. Dawson locks up Zoe and Reese in a basement lab. As they wait, Zoe tries to find out more about Reese without success, and says that she should find a different line of work. When she says that he knows nothing about her, Reese reveals that he’s checked her background and learned that her father was a politician who took the fall for a corruption scheme in his party. He went to jail and the reporters camped out on his family’s lawn. Zoe explains that the party sent a political fixer to the house and got rid of the reporters, and she vowed then and there to become a fixer as well, someone who knows what to say and always has something to trade. Reese wonders if she plans to make a trade now but Zoe doesn’t answer him. Lawson and his men come in and Zoe claims that she gave a copy of the trial files to a friend, the only person she trust. The copy that will be released if she doesn’t turn up alive and well. Lawson doesn’t believe it and tells Reese and Zoe that whichever one of them gives him the files will live. Finch tries to call Keller to warn him, but hears the rest of the recording. On it, Lawson calls up Keller himself and the CEO tells Dana that he knew all about the altered trial files. Finch hangs up before he can tell Keller what he knows. Keller comes to see Zoe and Reese, and tells Zoe to be reasonable. Douglas prepares a syringe with another “fake heart attack” drug and Zoe breaks, saying that she’ll take them to where she has the file hidden. As they take her away, Zoe kisses Reese on the cheek and tells him that she always has something to trade... and secretly slips him a paper clip. Once they’re gone, Douglas prepares to give Reese a fatal injection of potassium chloride, but Reese frees himself and injects Douglas with his own syringe. The next morning, Zoe tells Lawson that she has to make a call to arrange a meeting to get the file. She actually calls Finch, telling him that they’re heading for the naval yard. Lawson takes the phone away from her and Finch tells Reese where Zoe is and that they can trust her. Once he’s sure that Reese is on his way, Finch meets Keller for a breakfast appointment. Lawson takes Zoe to the naval yard where Skip is waiting for them. However, he figures that Zoe is bluffing and that the only person she would have trusted with the file is herself. Lawson checks her PDA and confirms that it’s stored there. As Lawson tells his driver to leave, Reese arrives, kills the driver, and tasers Lawson. He asks Zoe when she decided to do the right thing, and she admits that she only decided right before she gave him the paper clip. Keller assures Finch that he’s made a solid investment and will reap big profits once Sylocet is released. When he receives a text message from Reese confirming that he has the file, Finch tells Keller that the price is going to drop because senior management will have legal problems. He shows the CEO a photo of Dana and says that since all Keller cares about is money, that’s what he’s going to take from him. Finch pays the bill for breakfast and then walks away from the stunned CEO. Carter goes to Sullivan’s apartment to get the files and finds him dead. She hears someone running down the stairs and runs out of the apartment. The killer shoots at her and Carter returns fire, but by the time she gets down to the street, the killer has disappeared. As Reese drives Zoe home, she listens to a news report about the Sylocet recall. Reese comments that Gilmore is being investigated on a corruption charge and figures that he pissed off someone with influence. Zoe neither confirms nor denies, but she tells Reese that Dana’s family will be getting an anonymous donation to finance their suit against Virtanen. As Reese drops her off, he tells her to be careful but Zoe tells him not to count on it and suggests that he call her for dinner sometime. Episode Notes *The Virtanen Pharmaceuticals case features again in , when the principle figures involved go on trial. Production Notes *The episode was previously titled "Killing Zoe". Music *"New York" composed by John Kanter and Fred Ebb, sung by Cat Power - Music playing during the closing scene. Bloopers and Continuity Errors *At the DeLuca crime scene, Carter reads in DeLuca's rap sheet about the M. Elias murder. The notes say that Marlene Elias was stabbed in the back. In the next scene she tells Detective Terney that the victim was stabbed multiple times in the chest. *When Zoe stepped out of the door, she was wearing a coat, boots, red top. Later she changed into a cocktail dress and high heels, carrying a red evening bag, but is not carrying her clothing from earlier in the evening. Trivia *Finch uses the alias "Partridge," another last name based on a bird. Quotes *"I know you don't care who you hurt to get what you want. I know the only thing you do care about is money. So that's what I'm going to take from you. Your money. All of it. Your were right Mr Keller. I'll never will have to invest in another company. -- Finch Clips File:Person of Interest - Person of Interest - Preview 'The Fix'|The Fix References es:The Fix 106 106